The book is a social philosophical contribution to the discussion on individualization in the tension between self-interest, autonomy, and self-realization. The central theme is the contradictions of the modern individual: the interplay of self-responsibility and powerlessness, of emancipation and self-sacrifice, of rationality and acceptance of the given, of subjectivism and conformism. After the introduction outlines the framework of the topic and sketches the conceptual development up to Leibniz and Herder, modern theorists of the individual such as Kant, Fichte, and Hegel; Humboldt, Marx, and Mill; Horkheimer, Adorno, and Fromm; and finally Bloch, Mead, and Sartre are presented and discussed in four parts. The individual chapters are interrelated but can also be read separately. The conclusion consists of reflections on individualism as ideology.